Lucky at Cards
by dogbertcarroll
Summary: Xander Harris' dating problems take a turn for the weird, as is the norm when you attend a high school perched on the mouth of Hell. But you know what they say, if you can't be lucky at love, be lucky at cards.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS or associated properties.**

Xander heard a scream for help and followed it out of reflex, finding a large vampire had Aura and Harmony cornered in an L-shaped back alley. The vamp's grin said he saw Xander and didn't think he was a threat at all, which unfortunately he was probably right about, and lacking the element of surprise Xander figured his only chance was if he was standing next to the vamp and got him to look away... a faint hope at best.

"Save us!" Harmony screamed.

"What's in it for me?" Xander asked, pretending not to care as he walked over.

"What?!" the girls chorused in shock.

Seeing the vampire was clearly amused and hoping to get it to lower its guard some more, Xander just shrugged. "Look at the size of him and tell me what you could possibly have that would be worth my almost certain death facing him."

The vampire outright grinned at seeing it was going to get entertainment with its meal.

"Money!" Aura burst out.

"Sex!" Harmony shouted out at the same time.

"Money and sex?" Xander asked, looking doubtful. "How much money are we talking here?"

"A hundred dollars!" Aura shouted quickly. "Each!" Harmony added.

"Sex and a measly two hundred dollars?" Xander asked, acting insulted. "Do you see the size of him? Look at those arms!"

The vampire flexed and showed off his muscles.

"Look at him," Xander commanded. "He's not some fledge! He could probably punch through that brick wall. Show 'em how strong you are. Show 'em you're a master," Xander encouraged the vamp, slipping his stake out when the vamp turned to punch the wall and slamming it home, hoping he didn't miss the heart.

The vamp turned with a snarl of rage, ripping the stake out of Xander's hand as it brought a clawed hand up to rip off his face, only for the vamp to finally burst into ash, taking Xander's stake with it.

Xander took a deep breath and tried to pretend he'd planned all that and hadn't just peed himself a little. "I guess two hundred is OK, since he wasn't that bright," Xander said, trying to sound thoughtful as he joked with the pair.

"Two hundred dollars? You'll be lucky if I don't sue you!" Harmony snarled, her fear turning to anger as she recalled the day's events and seeing him as a safe outlet. "Yeah," Aura added quickly, falling into familiar and comfortable patterns. "For all we know you were in on it with him!"

Hearing the two sneering at him and accusing him of being in league with a vampire after he'd just risked his life to save theirs, he felt a cold anger overtake him. "So let me make sure I have this straight. You made me an offer to save your worthless hides, and now that you are no longer in danger you are welching on the deal. Fine, that just means if I ever hear you screaming for help again I can just walk away and spend my time more productively, like getting a drink."

Harmony sneered something about what a loser he was, so he turned and strode off without a backwards glance, but he'd gotten no more than halfway to the street before he heard them screaming for help once more. He turned and saw they were being cornered by a pair of vamps that had been attracted by their earlier screams.

"Save us!" the pair screamed.

Xander turned and walked down the alley, stopping a good dozen feet away and considered his options. He had no stakes on him, having only carried one out of habit to use as a last resort, since he was on the outs with Buffy at the moment. The best he could do was buy some time and pray for a miracle.

"I saved you just a minute ago," Xander said, faking anger. "I was offered sex and money only to find that not only did you have no intentions of fulfilling your end of the bargain, but that you planned on accusing me of being behind your problem in the first place. What could you possibly do to make me believe you would honestly pay me this time, and what could you possibly offer that would tempt me to face two vampires at once?"

The girls started making wild and kinky offers of possible sexual favors and a surprising sum of money they had in their personal checking accounts. The vampires looked both surprised and lustful as Harmony ran off a large list of sexual acts, some of which she no-doubt only knew about from rumor. Meanwhile, Xander's eyes scanned the alley for anything he could use for a stake as he tried to recall when Buffy's patrol route took her into the alleys behind the Bronze.

"I swear on my mother's grave!" Aura promised.

"Your mother isn't dead," Xander said with a growl, actually having no clue about Aura's parents but needing to keep the vamps entertained so they wouldn't just tear into the pair. "Wait, isn't she the MILF with the big tits that the pizza delivery guys rave about because all they have to do is knock and she calls out for them to come in and BOOM, she's naked on the sofa?"

Aura sputtered and one of the vampires looked at Aura and grinned. "I always did prefer more mature women," he said with a toothy grin.

"You wouldn't mind going and killing her mother for me, would you?" Xander asked politely. "I mean, I'd hate for her to swear on her mother's grave when the woman was still alive, that would be wrong. She lives at the mansion on Crescent, the one with the blue Lexus in the drive. It's hard to miss."

"Go on, make an honest woman out of her," the other vamp encouraged with a smirk, figuring he could feed on the three teens while his friend had his fun, which would probably take hours, and score them a rich house to rob.

"Take your time," the departing vamp suggested as he vanished around the corner; only for the slayer to appear a moment later following the familiar sound of a vampire dusting.

The remaining vamp quickly spun to put his back against the wall, keeping the two girls in front of him. His eyes darted around for a way to escape, but the L-shaped alley only had two exits and the mercenary could easily delay him enough for the slayer to stake him, unless... "How much?!" the vampire demanded, facing Xander but keeping an eye on the slayer.

"For?" Xander asked sounding unconcerned, keeping in character.

"Keeping the slayer off me long enough for me to escape," the vamp said nervously.

"I'll need the girls unharmed so they'll pay me..." Xander said, seeing a way to ensure Harmony and Aura could get out of it unharmed.

"What are you doing, Xander?!" Buffy demanded, as Willow and Oz caught up with her. "I told you I didn't want you out here!"

"And I clearly didn't care," Xander said bluntly. Turning to the vamp he said, "As long as it pisses her off, I'll work cheap. Give me all the cash you have on you and the girls. Just walk over to me, keeping them in between her and you, and pass me the cash. Run like hell and I'll delay her."

"What?!" Willow exclaimed in shock at the sight of Xander working with a vamp.

"Stay there, slayer," Xander ordered, glaring at Buffy. "These girls are my meal ticket and I won't have you screwing that up!"

The vamp almost breathed a sigh of relief as Buffy obeyed Xander because she wanted to know what was going on. A small bundle of cash was shoved into Xander's hands.

"Move quickly," Xander ordered the vamp as Xander stepped forward to take the vamp's place holding the girls.

"Bye," the vamp said, showing speed that vamps normally weren't capable of as he vanished down the alley.

"You saved us... again," Harmony said in shock.

"Oh it wasn't that big-" Buffy began, only to be ignored.

"You saved us from the one and even after we were mean to you, you got one to leave and the other to let us go safely," Harmony said amazed.

"What can I say? You made a persuasive offer," Xander said, dropping the mercenary persona he'd been using and joking around once more, relieved to be alive himself.

"What the hell was that?!" Buffy exploded, wanting answers and no longer willing to wait on them.

"What's her problem?" Aura asked.

"Their problem," Harmony corrected, seeing Rosenberg looking much the same.

"Earlier today when that spell made every woman in town lust after me, I made them do all sorts of sexual things for my entertainment," Xander deadpanned.

"No you didn't!" Buffy and Willow exclaimed together, horrified at the idea.

Xander nodded. "That's right, I didn't, though I could easily have had them both go through the whole Kama Sutra with me. No, what I did was fend off their advances and turn them down over and over, thus I'm untrustworthy and can't hang with them anymore."

"It wasn't like that at all!" Willow exclaimed, though she couldn't find anything else to say about what it was like.

"Anyhow, I'm out of stakes. I only had the one on me, so I'm just going to call it a night and stop hanging out in dark alleys," Xander told the two girls, walking off and ignoring the Scoobs.

"What did we miss?" Oz asked the two girls curiously. He knew Buffy and Willow would probably calm down and accept Xander back in the group in a couple of days, but now it looked like Xander might not accept. The lupine part of his nature was a bit disturbed by the thought.

 **Sunnydale High, the next day...**

Sarah wasn't one of the cool crowd, but she was well connected enough to hear what they talked about and what was making the rounds today sounded like the answer to her prayers. Her best friend had died last month and his voice had started calling her at night, asking her to come outside. She knew that meant bad things, but apparently there was someone who would take care of things for a fee and you could barter down the fee by offering him certain 'services'... She smiled and set out to find Xander Harris, unaware several other people were doing the same thing for much the same reason.

 **Typos by: Ordieth**


	2. Chapter 2

Sarah bit her lip as she considered Xander Harris. She remembered being obsessed with him, along with every other female in town, for no reason, and then feeling like a scorned lover when that obsession vanished. None of that made any sense to her, but then there were a number of things that made no sense about Sunnydale that you had to ignore just to get by.

"I am so glad Cordy broke up with Xander," Harmony told Aura, a couple of lockers down from Sarah.

"I know," Aura readily agreed. "I mean, I doubt we'd have been able to afford his prices without being able to offer a little extra... incentive." The dark-skinned girl shared a smirk with her fellow Cordette.

Harmony giggled. "He really saved our ass and it only seems fair to let him sample what he saved, plus if we ever need saving again I want him motivated."

"You are really smart," Aura stated, "and I didn't even know you know French."

"Just a few words," Harmony said, shutting her locker. "We both got a free, ready to spend it?"

"You know it," Aura agreed. "Got the cash?"

"Yeah," Harmony agreed before nervously asking, "Have you ever with..."

"One time at camp, but never with a guy at the same time. Relax, it'll be fun," she assured her.

"Cool," Harmony replied.

Aura shut her locker, revealing a shocked and conflicted Cordelia Chase, which neither noticed as they left, intent on paying their debt.

Sarah quickly rushed off to class, as she didn't have a free period and didn't want to draw the ire of Cordelia Chase, who was probably going to explode from the looks of things.

She was relieved to hear the rumors confirmed, because it was getting harder and harder to say no every night and she was getting bags under her eyes from lack of sleep.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"He looks relaxed," Oz offered as he ate lunch with his girlfriend and Buffy while they eyed Xander from across the quad.

"Probably because he skipped History and got a nap somewhere," Willow muttered, annoyed that he'd missed a class.

"He didn't look relaxed last night," Buffy grumbled, angrily stabbing her spaghetti with a fork. "I can't believe he made a deal with a vampire; he hates vampires!"

"He said he was out of stakes," Oz reminded her, "it was a gamble."

Buffy snorted and shook her head, still irritated but at least a little amused as well. "I can't believe that vamp gave him a wad of cash."

"And two cheerleaders," Willow added with a frown.

"Not the usual rescue tactic or bet," Oz offered blandly, causing the two girls to giggle as he'd hoped. Without Xander there, he was being forced to take on the roll of the joker so they didn't get too stressed out, which left him wondering who made sure Xander didn't get too stressed, because he was finding the role a bit challenging.

"Why was he out of stakes?" Buffy said, thinking aloud. "They mentioned him saving them before, which would cover it if he didn't pull out the stake in time after staking the vamp, but he usually carries at least three on him, because it's easier for him to carry them, what with the baggy clothes and not having a mom who pokes through his stuff, than for me. He's carried half a dozen some nights, which comes in really handy. So, what all did he do to use up that many stakes?"

Buffy and Willow exchanged glances while Oz made a mental note to talk to Giles about where to get stakes so he could carry the spares as well, since that was another thing Xander wasn't around to do.

"We may want to ask around and find out," Willow said, worried about what Xander was off doing by himself.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

'I need a nap,' Xander thought to himself as he ate lunch alone. He'd gotten a full night's sleep last night, a rare occurrence, but Aura and Harmony had surprised him on the way to History. He hadn't actually planned on collecting what they owed him, but they were rather insistent, so now he had an obscenely large wad of cash on him and protection from any mantis ladies he might run into.

"This day can't get any stranger," Xander said, right before a cute if chubby girl with dark hair set her tray down across from him.

"I understand you can help people with problems at night," she said hopefully.

"I have a couple of skills," Xander admitted. "What are you having problems with?" He was feeling much too mellow to be surprised by anything at the moment and decided to just go with the flow. He briefly wondered if this is what being Oz felt like.

"Last week my friend Roger died," she explained nervously, "but I hear him at night calling for me to come outside and it's getting harder and harder to refuse."

"Just him? I mean, there's no one else with him?" he clarified.

"Just him," she agreed. "I haven't looked, but I have looked at the footprints in the grass outside my window the next day."

'Single fledge not even a month old,' Xander thought. 'Buffy probably wouldn't even notice staking him on the way to the Bronze.'

"I know what you charge and... I have no problem paying you," Sarah said, blushing as she looked away.

'I have no idea what I charge,' Xander thought, amused. "I'll come to your house an hour before sundown," Xander told her. "Are your parents going to be a problem?" he asked, not wanting to have to explain what he was doing in their daughter's room at night, as he was sure 'staking a vampire' would be wildly misinterpreted.

"It's Friday, they'll be in LA for the weekend," Sarah assured him.

"Alright, give me your address and I'll see you tonight," Xander said, already making plans in his head as to how to handle it. "Be ready with scented candles and a negligee, go the whole nine yards," he ordered, thinking of the best way to distract the demon. "Vanilla perfume is great, but anything with a strong scent you enjoy would be fine."

"Al-alright," Sarah stuttered out, blushing bright red as she wrote her name, address, and phone number down and handed it to him. "I'll see you then," she said before quickly fleeing.

Xander pocketed her information and picked up their trays. He needed to visit Giles and get some things before class and lunch was already half way over.

Cordelia turned and walked away, shocked at what she'd just heard. She needed to check with Miss Calendar and see if there were any aftereffects from the love spell, because Xander Harris was never that smooth, forceful, dominant, attractive... She pushed that thought down and hurried off.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Hey, Giles," Xander greeted the older man as he entered the library, not making any jokes as Giles was no doubt still annoyed with him.

"Xander," Giles replied with a put upon sigh.

He could already tell asking to borrow a crossbow would be futile, but then he spotted the one Buffy had cracked over the skull of a demon last week sticking out of the trashcan and quickly changed his plans. "I was wondering if you had anything I could read on professional stake carving," Xander said. "I was planning on carving some while I had the time and in exchange I'll take out the trash for you."

Giles looked thoughtful for a moment and nodded. "I'll photocopy a few pages for you and make some notes," he agreed.

"Thanks," Xander said, grabbing the can and heading for the dumpster with his prize.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

"That is a beaut," Mr. Hanson said as he saw the crossbow Xander had brought to class. He winced as he saw the crack in the stock. "What caused that?"

"Someone dropped it out of a second story window," Xander lied. "How hard would it be to repair?"

"Medium to hard, not something for beginners," the shop teacher said, taking the crossbow and examining it.

"How fast could you do it?" Xander asked.

The old many chuckled. "Forty-five minutes tops, but it'd take another three hours for the lacquer to dry."

"That would really help me out a lot," Xander said. "If you can do that for me, I'll cover the bills of all the students who skipped out of paying for materials this semester."

"It's nearly two hundred," Mr. Hanson warned, figuring Xander didn't have the money and they'd have to work something else out, like making Xander his assistant for the year.

"Deal," Xander said, taking care to pull out a half dozen bills from his pocket so he wasn't flashing a huge wad of cash. "The extra is for the extra material; I use a bit for personal projects."

"And always oak," the teacher noted, but said no more.

"Traditional hard wood," Xander replied. He wasn't sure how much of what actually went on in Sunnydale was known by the people who lived here, but just surviving for so long on the Hellmouth meant they had to have some sort of clue.

"Ash and Thorn would draw the wrong sort of attention," Mr. Hanson said shaking his head, "but I can order Oak by the ton and no one bats an eye. You know where the oak dowels are and the lathe's free. I'll take care of this while you work on that."

Xander nodded, happy to see that someone did know and contributed, even if in a fairly roundabout manner. He idly read through the pages Giles had prepared for him, surprised to find the answer to one of the questions that had bugged the Scoobs and Giles hadn't been able to answer, 'Why is it that vamps sometimes leave behind small items when they turn to ash?'

A lot of times it was a piece of jewelry or a small item but occasionally a leather jacket or boots were left behind, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason, until now.

"Items with strong positive energies imbued in them from either prayer or sentimental attachment have been known to resist the destruction caused by the blood demon's link to the earthly plane being severed," he read quietly to himself.

Of course, now that he knew the reason items survived vamp's dusting he started thinking about ways he could use it to his advantage. Getting a priest to bless a bunch of stakes was probably acting a bit too openly for the demons to ignore. If Xander was a demon, he'd certainly keep tabs on the local priests and their comings and goings.

Xander cut a six-foot oak dowel into nine inch chunks with the table saw as he considered how to imbue a stake with positive emotions. His first thought he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing about, as while it would probably work, he really doubted Buffy would go for it, no matter how smooth he sanded the stakes. Hell, she'd probably stake him just for making the suggestion.

The suggestion of thinning the shaft and adding cross hatching for a better grip seemed obvious in retrospect and he didn't know why they hadn't been doing it earlier. It normally took him less than five minutes to make half a dozen stakes, but with all he was doing to these, class was half over and he still hadn't finished. He ran a blowtorch along the wood to darken the grain after he had finished sanding them. He figured the better they looked the more positive emotions they'd invoke.

They certainly were impressive looking, but something was missing. He grinned as he realized what it was, and grabbed a carving knife and some woodstain. It'd take time to carve them, but there was just enough class time left to get it down and the stain would be dry by the time school ended.

He wasn't sure what to carve, but he was sure it would come to him.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"What's this?" Buffy asked as she and Willow set their bags on the library table and she saw a rolled-up leather case.

"I'm not sure," Giles admitted as he came out of his office carrying a cup of tea and a book. "Xander was supposed to drop off some stakes, but I didn't think they'd rate a case."

Buffy unrolled the case and whistled as she took a look at its contents, pulling one of the stakes out of it. "You'd be wrong."

"I find myself at a loss for words," Giles said as he pulled one out himself, running his hands along it. "These are... beautiful, though I don't recognize the language of these carvings."

"Xander made these?" Willow asked doubtfully.

"Definitely," Oz said as he took Buffy's stake and handed it to Giles, while taking Giles stake for himself and pulling another two out for the pair.

"How do you figure?" Buffy asked, making a couple of practice moves with her new stake and finding it really suited her.

"Because our names are carved into them and there is a quote in Klingon," Willow said with a grin, as she examined her own.

"They also have a motto on each one," Oz added.

"Oh, what's mine say?" Buffy asked eagerly.

"From Hell's heart I stab at thee," Oz read.

"It's almost too pretty to use," Buffy said as she ran her fingers along it.

"There's even one for Angel," Oz said as he turned it to read the inscription. "The last enemy to be defeated is death."

"Rather fitting," Giles said, before noting the sad look on Buffy's face.

"You can carry it as a backup until you can give it to Angel yourself," Willow told Buffy, still holding out hope they'd be able to fix Angel.

"You don't think Xander made it for me to stake Angel with, do you?" Buffy asked, biting her lip nervously.

"He's not that deep," Willow assured her.

"OK," Buffy said, relaxing and smiling a little. "Wanna go beat what Willy knows about Xander out of him later?"

"That's the spirit," Oz offered, exchanging confused glances with Giles.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Xander found himself being pulled into a classroom by an angry Cordelia Chase and didn't think to put up any resistance until she'd already handcuffed him to the teacher's chair. "What's going on here?" he asked as Cordelia rolled the chair into the center of the room and he saw Miss Calendar setting up candles.

"Just shut your... stupid face and sit there," Cordelia ordered.

"OK, but one question first," Xander said. "Did I save your lives recently and forget?"

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	3. Chapter 3

"No, seriously," Xander said, "what's this about and what are you doing?"

"We are trying to ascertain if there are any remaining spells on you that need to be cleansed," Miss Calendar explained, while carefully drawing what looked like circuit diagrams in white power around the candles.

"And the handcuffs?" Xander asked.

"In case you didn't wish to cooperate," she replied, placing a roll of copper wire attached to a nine volt battery around everything.

"If I was going to be difficult, I could still make a mess. My legs are free, after all," he pointed out.

"Please don't," Miss Calendar said, lighting the candles, "the ingredients are rather expensive. I don't expect you to object, the handcuffs were her idea."

"How do we do this?" Cordelia asked, ignoring Xander.

"It's already done," Miss Calendar said. "The copper circle, with a small charge running through it, will limit the area of effect, while the candles will draw out magical energies and malevolent influences."

"So no chanting or anything?" Cordelia asked, just to make sure.

"You have to sing the little Bunny Foo-Foo song with accompanying movements while skyclad," Xander said solemnly, as the white powder began to glow brightly.

Miss Calendar shot him an amused smirk.

"What's skyclad?" Cordelia asked, wondering if she had any clothes in the appropriate blue scale to count as sky.

"Not important or needed," she assured the teen. "Look, it's starting to work."

Black smoke began to leak from Xander's pores and was drawn to the many candles surrounding him, causing them to burn brighter.

"What is that?" Xander demanded in revulsion.

"Demonic taint, necrotic energies, just bad mojo in general," Miss Calendar explained.

"Background radiation of badness," Xander said with a shudder.

"Hah! I knew he was evil!" Cordelia exclaimed.

"This isn't because he's evil, this is just what you pick up from living on the Hellmouth your entire life," Miss Calendar explained.

"Well… my spiritual pores are clean, now what?" Xander asked, as he saw that no more black smoke was leaking from him.

"Give it a moment," the Techno-Pagan said. "It'll start pulling more active energies like recently cast spells soon."

"Okay," Xander said and waited.

After a couple of minutes Cordelia turned to Miss Calendar. "Why isn't it working?"

"Because there's nothing for it to find," Miss Calendar explained.

"What about the love spell?" Cordelia demanded angrily.

"Not an active spell, that was days ago. He's clean," she replied with a shrug.

"I'm a bit surprised," Xander admitted. "A little relieved and upset at the same time too, I suppose. I know I was expecting something, like a bad luck curse or entropy thingy."

"Hellmouth radiation does that all on its own," Miss Calendar explained.

"Just living in this town is bad luck," Xander said with a snort. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Experience," Miss Calendar guessed with a grin.

"But girls have been coming up to him!" Cordelia complained. "Why would they be paying attention to him if not from a curse?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "Maybe, I'm their bad luck," he suggested sarcastically.

"Let me end the spell," Miss Calendar said, picking up the edge of the copper wire only to frown as it disintegrated into flakes of green rust. "Well, that was unfortunate."

"Eww, stop it!" Cordelia ordered, brushing at the thick black smoke that started to pour off her.

"This is going to ruin all my protective enchantments," Miss Calendar complained as grey smoke began to rise from her skin. "I did not expect the Hellmouth's influence to be this corrosive."

Xander undid the handcuffs and stood up. At Miss Calendars questioning glance, he showed her the thumb release switches on them, before setting them in the chair and carefully stepping over the candles.

"Of course they were toy handcuffs, why would she have real ones," Miss Calendar said with a sigh, as Xander left.

"I think it's stopped," Cordelia said, examining herself carefully. "You don't need real handcuffs as long as they're too busy to figure out they're fake," she said, as what the teacher had said registered.

"I suppose that's true," Miss Calendar conceded. "He noticed in the end, but it did the job."

"I've used them on him before," Cordelia said before frowning. "What are these… orange dandruff flakes?" Tangerine colored specks of light cascaded down her body.

The Techno-Pagan turned to examine the brunette cheerleader. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "If it's a spell, it was cast on you as a child, because it takes quite some time for it to subsume itself into your aura like that."

"What?!"

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Xander picked up the crossbow and examined it. "Wow, this is amazing."

"Adjusted the sights, added some padding and reinforcement while I was at it, nothing major," Mr. Hanson replied.

"Definitely worth the money," Xander said, before retrieving his two stakes. "Lead weights?" Xander asked as he hefted them and noticed the difference.

"Makes for a more effective weapon," the shop teacher explained. "Used a pair of old silver coins with the Knights Templar cross for the cap."

Xander examined the ends of his stakes and whistled, clearly impressed.

"Coins are some of the easiest sources for nearly any symbol you might find useful," Mr. Hanson said, "and they're easy to cut with the right tools. That's more of something I teach in jewelry making however."

"I should probably take that course," Xander said.

"Next semester, Mr. Harris, I'll keep a spot open for you," Mr. Hanson promised.

"Excellent," Xander said cheerfully. "Any other courses I should take or books I should read?"

"While they don't teach it here, check the college for a basic finance course. It's something you need to know before you graduate high school and certainly before you start college and end up deeply in debt. That's probably why they don't offer the class in high school, so they can sucker you in." Mr. Hanson shook his head. "As for reading… Algernon Maybach's Guide to Basic Thaumaturgy."

"I'm not sure me and magic are a good mix," Xander admitted.

"Then it's definitely the book for you," Mr. Hanson assured him. "The first chapter is about environmental attunement and how it effects magic. Living here causes you to build up… bad mojo. It's like static cling, only instead of getting a shock when it reached a critical amount, something bad happens. One of the first novice skills he outlines is how to use magical buildup like that to cause small changes in the environment. It's just small things, unstick a drawer, light a candle or extinguish one," he explained.

"Like… cantrips from Dungeons and Dragons?" Xander asked.

Mr. Hanson chuckled. "Yeah, just like that. Small things that cost more magic than they're worth but the point is to burn off the mojo so it doesn't get strong enough to give you a stroke of bad luck, which considering what you do, could be really bad."

"Death and taxes," Xander said with a chuckle. "You can't avoid them, so you do your best to deal with them."

"I'd tell you to start investing for retirement and to remember to pack it in when your reflexes start to slow down, but I didn't listen to that advice at your age, so I doubt you will either," Mr. Hanson said honestly. "Instead, I'll tell you this, take some teaching credits when you get a chance; shop teachers can be missing a few bits and no one questions it."

"Most shop teachers are missing a few bits," Xander said, surprised. "I always thought it was because of on the job accidents."

"Some are clumsy, most aren't," Mr. Hanson said amused. "Now get moving, I've got to close up."

Xander put the crossbow in his bag. "Thanks again."

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Do you really think Willy will know anything?" Willow asked as they sat in the school library. She ran her fingers over her new stake absently as they talked.

"Maybe, maybe not," Buffy said with a shrug. "Either way, it's been a while since I've questioned him about what's going on with the local demon population. So it's really no trouble to ask about Xander as well."

"And what exactly is wrong with Xander?" Giles asked curiously.

"He used up all his stakes doing something last night and then convinced a vamp to give him all its money and its two hostages as payment for delaying me long enough to let it escape," Buffy explained.

"While I have a hard time seeing Xander of all people making a deal with a vampire, I can see him doing so to save two people," Giles said thoughtfully.

"That's what we were figuring, though that still leaves us wondering what he did with all his stakes," Buffy said.

"Stake vampires?" Giles suggested.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "He normally carries a couple of stakes, plus some extras for me, and some more just in case," she explained. "For him to use them all up means something happened, but he's not really talking to us right now and he seems really popular with girls suddenly, which makes no sense!"

"Do you think he's messing with magic?" Willow asked.

"Hey, Giles," Xander said as he entered the library. "Do you have a copy of Algernon Maybach's Guide to Basic Thaumaturgy?"

 **Three minutes later…**

Xander wiggled his arms a little get Giles attention as he sat tied up in the chair in the middle of a circle. "What is going on this time?"

"We are checking you for magic," Giles said as he carefully places several quartz crystals around him.

"Ohhh nice!" Buffy exclaimed as she examined the crossbow she'd found in his bag.

"Hey!" Xander complained. "I get tying me up and checking for spells, but going through my stuff is just being nosy!"

"A bit," Buffy admitted, "but I was just making sure there wasn't anything that gave me the wiggins."

"And then 'Ohhh, shiny.' kicked in," Oz joked.

Xander snickered and relaxed. "Fair enough."

Willow and Giles started chanting, causing the crystals arrayed around Xander to light up with a pure white light. The pair stopped and the light slowly died down and went out.

"Well?" Buffy asked impatiently.

"He's clean, remarkably so," Giles said with a frown.

"Cordelia and Miss Calendar already tied me to a chair and did a mystic cleaning on me to make sure I was clean," Xander explained. "There was copper wire, some candles and glowing white powder."

"Really? Sounds like a very strong aura cleansing," Giles said thoughtfully. "The ingredients are usually quite expensive, that's why I use simple quartz and detection spells before going that far."

"I may have to reimburse her," Xander decided. "Can we untie me now?"

"Wait!" Buffy exclaimed. "What about the book?"

"I don't have any books with me," Xander said, confused.

"Yes, but you were asking for one," Buffy reminded him.

"Fine, untie me and let me check the book out," Xander said.

"I mean it's a magic book," Buffy said intently.

"And?" Xander asked confused.

"And?" Buffy repeated, loosing track of where she'd been going with her investigation.

"Why do you want it?" Willow asked, impatiently.

"Aha! Yes! Why do you want it?" Buffy demanded.

Giles rubbed his temples and muttered something under his breath.

"I'm hungry and thought I might eat it," Xander said sarcastically, clearly annoyed.

"I meant, what spells were you going to cast from it?" Buffy accused, rolling her eyes.

"It doesn't contain spells," Giles said, retrieving a small leather tome. "It's a scholarly work on the basis of magic."

"Oh," Buffy said deflating.

"Why would you want to read something like that?" Willow asked.

"Because –" Xander began.

"It's the latest Jeopardy category," Oz interrupted.

Xander chuckled and Buffy sighed. "Okay, stupid question," she admitted. "Why are you interested?"

"Mostly to learn to avoid it," Xander replied. "Now, either untie me or ask for my safe word."

"Your what?" Buffy asked, as Willow blushed bright red.

"Just untie him," Giles ordered.

 **Typed by – Sitheus Maximus**


	4. Chapter 4

"A bit of an overreaction," Oz offered once Xander had left, "but no rope burns, so it's okay."

Willow blushed even harder.

"A point in our favor, I'm sure," Giles said sarcastically, though obviously amused.

"At least we know Xander isn't playing with magic," Buffy offered.

The doors to the library burst open and Cordelia stormed in. "I need a book on magic, pronto!"

Oz exchanged a look with Buffy and held up the rope.

Buffy nodded.

Giles groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Sarah examined herself in the mirror once more and cursed her genes. Girls like Chase and Kendall had trim athletic bodies and were blessed with huge racks, while she was short, dumpy and had… Okay, even she would admit she had a decent pair of breasts, even if her butt seemed to be designed as a counterweight for them.

She adjusted her white babydoll nighty and checked her legs, thankful she'd shaved them just the other day so they were still perfectly smooth.

Turning away from the mirror she looked around her room. She'd done as he'd told her, set up scented candles, used vanilla scented body spray and even placed a thin red handkerchief over her lamp to help set the mood.

She pushed aside her doubts. She'd asked him for help and part of his price was… a very romantic night together. Harmony and Aura were just a quickie in a supply room, he wanted more from here, he wanted the kind of night she only read about in romance novels and he expected her to give it to him.

She shivered a little and went to turn up the heat. She wanted everything to be perfect. He'd be here in just a couple of hours to… Oh, yeah. She'd completely forgotten about Roger or whatever was pretending to be him.

What had been an inescapable death sentence for her was something that didn't even merit a raised eyebrow from Xander. Damn, but that was hot!

It was a couple of hours until Xander was due to arrive, so she decided to see what other ideas she could come up with to make it even more romantic.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Xander looked at his watch. He had almost half the day left before he had to meet up with Sarah, so what to do now?

With a large wad of cash burning a hole in his pocket, he could practically hear the comic book shop calling him.

 **10 minutes later…**

"– using ultraviolet lights to burn vampires is a valid tactic," Andrew whined.

"Moonlight should burn them as well or at least give them a tan than!" Jonathan argued.

Xander looked over at the Gamer's table as he entered his favorite den of nerdity and geekdom, and saw the ever present alpha nerds arguing as usual.

"You need to leave your jacket and backpack off while you browse," the owner, Bob a balding, middle aged man reminded him, as always.

"On it," Xander agreed, dropping off his stuff at the Gamer's table.

"Xander, tell him ultraviolet lights are a valid defense against vampires!" Andrew demanded.

"No, tell him that makes no sense as vamps can walk around on heavily overcast days even though the clouds don't block ultraviolet at all!" Jonathan snapped back.

"Blade?" Xander asked, recalling vamps getting burned with ultraviolet lamps in the movie.

"It looked really cool!" Andrew said excitedly. "And only Dracula walked around during the day in his stuff."

"It looked really crazy," Jonathan replied.

"Blade was mostly a techno-thriller, trying to use hard science," Xander said, recalling the Scoobs' watching the movie and picking it apart. "Science is the problem, Science is the answer. In a tech driven world, despite the whole blood god thing at the end, ultraviolet works. In a supernatural world like Dracula, all it would do is hurt his eyes."

"Hurt his eyes?" Jonathan asked.

"Yeah, the slightly glassy look vamps have is because of an increase in the reflective surface on the back of their eyes allowing them to see in the dark. The wider vision range makes them more susceptible to ultraviolet than we are," Xander explained, having listened to Giles lecture to Buffy on the subject. "It's annoying but lacks the power sunlight has, because the sun is holy, being the first object of worship by humanity."

"Why doesn't moonlight burn vamps?" Jonathan asked curiously. "It's just reflected sunlight, right?"

"The moon was most often worshiped by people in favor of all the ghouls and beasties," Xander replied, "meaning the spiritual component is different."

"Makes sense," Jonathan agreed.

"What if you get your ultraviolet light blessed?" Andrew asked.

Xander paused. "I don't think anyone has ever tested that. If I ever find out I'll let you know."

"Find out?" Andrew asked confused as Xander vanished into the racks of comics.

Jonathan and Andrew exchanged confused glances.

Seeing a glint of silver and a bulge in one of Xander's jacket pockets, Jonathan looked around before reaching over and pulling out Xander's stake. Jonathan and Andrew stared at the stake in shock for a second before Jonathan hurriedly put it back.

Andrew stared wide eyed as Jonathan peeked in Xander's backpack.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Satisfied?" Cordelia asked.

"Yes, you have no traces of magic on you," Giles agreed.

She examined her arms as Oz untied her. "You're good at this, I don't even have rope burns." She glanced over at a bright red Willow and muttered, "It's always the quiet ones."

Buffy raised an eyebrow, but Oz gave a small shake of his head while Willow hid her face in a book.

"Why do you want a… magic book?" Giles asked.

"While making sure Doofus hadn't been casting any spells, some spell that was cast on me broke and I want to know what it was," Cordelia stated.

"If you went through the same cleansing ritual Xander did, it will have wiped all traces of the spell from your person," Giles replied. "I'm afraid there's not much we can do at this point."

"What?! But it was weird and freaky! There was all these little orange flakes, like Simpsons' dandruff coming off my skin!" Cordelia complained. "It better not have harmed my complexion or someone is going to pay!"

"Orange flakes?" Giles asked, suddenly paying close attention. "Similar to fish scales, perhaps?"

"Yeah, only more…" Cordelia agreed, searching her mind for the word.

"Tangerine," Giles stated.

"Exactly!" Cordelia agreed, focused on Giles.

"Sounds like you know the spell," Buffy said.

"Indeed I do; it's used when you wish to ensure a girl remains a virgin either for sacrifice or marriage," Giles stated.

"She's a virgin?!" Willow sputtered out in stark disbelief.

Cordelia rolled her eyes, but didn't even bother to respond.

"Someone wants to use her as a sacrifice?" Buffy guessed.

"It's possible," Giles agreed. "The standard spell has to be recast every three months to remain effective and unless one of her parents is a magic practitioner or has hired one to keep her 'pure', it is the most likely explanation."

"Miss Calendar said the spell was cast on me when I was a child because it was almost completely… submerged in my aura," Cordelia said.

Giles looked at her in shock. "I… I suppose it could have been cast on you as a child, but the amount of magic needed would be enormous, possibly more than could even be gained by sacrificing you!"

"Yay," Cordelia deadpanned with a sigh. "How would it keep me a virgin anyway? Does it make my hymen bulletproof or something?"

Oz blinked and stared at nothing while Giles smothered a laugh.

"No," Giles replied. "It would encourage things to go wrong so sex would not occur. It would start off simple, like things to ruin the mood, a run in your stockings or a spilled drink on your blouse. If you continued on, it would manipulate you emotionally, making you see everything about the boy in a negative light. Finally, if even that failed, it would work on the emotions of those around you causing strife and discord to separate you."

"You mean the reason I couldn't keep a serious boyfriend was this stupid spell?!" Cordelia demanded angrily.

"More than likely, yes," Giles agreed.

"I dumped Xander on Valentine's Day!" Cordelia said suddenly.

"Yes, I'm aware," Giles said irritably, still annoyed with everything that had occurred because of that event.

"Yes… and the spell wasn't removed until a little while ago," Cordelia said with a pointed glare.

Giles blinked and blushed. "Ah, yes. That would have been a likely reaction from one under the spell if they were planning…"

"Planning?" Buffy asked, causing Willow's eyes to widen in shock and horror.

"Confucius say, Virginity like balloon, one prick all gone," Oz quoted, heading off the rising tension.

Cordelia was the one to blush and turn away this time, before quickly recovering. "Well, if magic broke us up, then it's not my fault. In fact, I don't accept being broken up! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to give an unfaithful boyfriend a piece –"

"Of your mind?" Oz broke in.

Cordelia stopped. "That too," she agreed, before storming out of the library.

"We've got to stop her!" a wide-eyed Willow told Buffy before the two chased off after the departed teen.

"You know a lot about that spell," Oz noted, once the girls had left and it was only him and Giles in the library.

"As I said, it was often used for ritual sacrifices and the more old fashioned watcher's families were known to cast it on their daughters," Giles said, suddenly finding cleaning his glasses to be of great interest.

"What's the easiest way to break the spell?" Oz asked.

"Swallow a live goldfish," Giles replied reflexively. "One goldfish, doubled per day you need to shorten the length of the spell, since scales from a dead goldfish are one of the core ingredients for casting it."

Oz raised an eyebrow.

Giles put on his glasses and cleared his throat. After glancing around to make sure the girls really were gone, he said with a smirk, "I held the record with a mate in college for most live goldfish swallowed."

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Damn it, where could he be?!" Cordelia exclaimed angrily.

"I'm out of ideas," Buffy admitted. "Willow?"

Willow sighed. Somehow her plan to stop Cordelia from defiling Xander had evolved into trying to help Cordelia find Xander and she had no clue how that had occurred. "We've tried all the places he normally hangs out, obviously he's somewhere else."

"I was planning on beating info on Xander out of Willy. I can see if he knows what Xander's up to now, though he probably doesn't know anything," Buffy admitted.

The three climbed in Cordelia's car and headed for the demon bar near the docks.

"Just because you were under a spell doesn't mean it was responsible for your actions," Willow said, recalling what she'd done while under the effects of the love spell Amy had cast and how some of them were things she'd actually planned on doing if she ever got up the courage.

"I dumped him on Valentine's Day, in front of everyone, during the school dance, just after he'd given me a beautiful necklace and let me know how much he cared," Cordelia replied. "I had plans for the night that would have made any new insect ladies ignore him completely and instead I dumped him in the worst possible way on some flimsy pretext about Harmony and the girls. Looking back on it, none of it made any sense."

Willow slumped in the back seat. She'd hoped… but it looked like Cordelia was serious about Xander.

"He cared enough to cause every woman in Sunnydale to try and go all black widow on him," Buffy pointed out.

"He did," Cordelia agreed with a grin. "His plan was to make me fall in love with him so he could dump me in front of everyone."

"That's horrible," Buffy said, making a face.

Cordelia beamed, completely unfazed.

"And you aren't upset," Buffy noted and thought about it. "You aren't upset because by doing that he was basically confessing that he loved you!"

"Loved me, was hurt enough to cause major chaos and I have to admit, when he gets all vengeful…" Cordelia trailed off as she licked her lips.

Willow's mournful sigh was swallowed up by the wind.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Sarah rushed to the door when she heard the knock, pausing to catch her breath before she opened the door. "Xander! I have everything ready and I made us some food while we wait."

"Thanks," Xander said, trying not to trip on his tongue. He'd planned on using her as a distraction so the fledge wouldn't notice him, but he'd never expected her to be this distracting!

A car pulled up just as the front door closed.

"We just missed him," Willow noted.

"We can just go in, we're not vampires," Cordelia said, glaring at the house.

"And then we'd never find out what he was up to," Buffy said.

"I know exactly what he's up to!" Cordelia hissed. "She's somewhere around five two!"

"Xander doesn't just randomly boink girls and had his backpack with him," Willow pointed out.

"He's in the kitchen," Buffy said. "They're eating."

Cordelia could just make out a silhouette through the kitchen window from where they were. "I say he's there to cheat on me, what do you think he's there to do?"

"I don't know, that's why we're here," Buffy said firmly.

"Plus, you broke up with him, even if he didn't know it might have been magically compelled," Willow added.

"Fine," Cordelia said with a sigh. "We'll wait and keep watch."

"What are we watching for?" Willow asked, after a couple of minutes had gone by.

"If I knew that we wouldn't have to watch him," Buffy replied.

"Someone's coming," Cordelia noted, gesturing towards an approaching figure.

"Everyone down," Buffy hissed and ducked down.

Willow laid flat on the back seat and Cordelia slumped in her seat with a put upon sigh.

After a minute Buffy whispered, "He's going around the back, I think that was a vamp."

"Think that's why he's here?" Willow asked.

"Maybe," Buffy agreed. "Not sure why she's dressed that way if that's the case."

"A couple of girls said something about having to go in together to afford his rates this morning," Cordelia said, not wanting to reveal it was Harmony and Aura who'd gotten Xander when she still hadn't. "They were going to give him a wad of cash to do something for them and that something turned out to be them!"

"Girls are paying Xander for sex?" Buffy asked in disbelief.

"Quite a bit too," Cordelia grumbled out. "He gave them a cut rate because they both agreed to go at once."

"How much?" Willow asked curiously, calculating how much money she had available at the moment.

Cordelia's glare could have melted steel.

"I'm just curious!" Willow defended herself.

"From the size of the wad of cash she held, as a discount mind you, I doubt you could afford his full price," Cordelia said, a twinge of satisfaction in her tone.

Willow's eyes drifted to Buffy, who blinked and then looked back in shock, clearly thinking Willow was considering asking Buffy to help in getting a discount. Willow quickly shook her head, though the image of her and her two breast… erm, best friends was now stuck in her head.

"Let's follow the vamp and see what's going on," Buffy said quickly, trying to push certain scenes out of her mind, like when her and Willow were alone in Mantis Woman's basement with Xander chained to the wall in just his boxers and she' been revved up from battle...

Cordelia was out of the car before Buffy finished with her suggestion, the other two having to rush to keep up.

As they rounded the corner of the house, the vamp exploded into ash outside a bedroom window and they heard Xander say, "Sorry, watching's extra."

The window slid shut and music started playing.

"Is that Barry White?" Willow asked.

 **Typed by – Sitheus Maximus, the easily distracted.**


	5. Chapter 5

"Wake up, he's coming out," Willow whispered, before reaching into the backseat and shaking Buffy's shoulder.

Buffy and Cordelia woke up and quickly separated, as sometime during the night one of them had fallen onto the other and they'd ended up snuggling.

Pretending that hadn't happened, they straightened their clothes and turned their attention to the front door of Sarah's house where she was kissing a tired but happy looking Xander Harris, as a car pulled into the drive.

"Your fee," Sarah said, handing Xander a wad of cash, extremely pleased with how things had gone.

"This one's on me," Xander disagreed, kissing the back of her hand while slipping the cash back into it. As he turned to leave, he found Sarah's parents standing behind him. Not missing a beat, he simply touched his brow, gave them a nod and stepped around them.

"I'm really trying not to jump to conclusions here," Joan said, as her husband, Craig, just stood there looking shocked.

Sarah racked her brain for an explanation that didn't involve vampires. "I was tired of being a virgin and I didn't want my first time to be with a pimply faced kid in some backseat," she said truthfully, if leaving out a rather large portion of the story.

"You hired a gigolo?!" Craig exclaimed after a moment of silence, as it became clear Sarah wasn't going to say anything more. Craig took a deep breath like he was about to yell, but paused as something occurred to him. "He gave the money back?"

"Yep," Sarah said smugly. She'd had quite a few insecurities about her looks before, but at the moment they meant nothing to her. Two of the top tier, most popular, most beautiful girls in school had paid a large sum of money on top of a threesome for his services, while she had gotten him all to herself and he'd decided that more than covered her debt!

"That's my girl!" Joan said, wrapping her daughter in a hug.

Craig bit his lips, conflicted about the whole situation, but found a response that would encourage his daughter and not get him in trouble with his wife, while demonstrating a bit of pride in her. "Fat and unattractive me ass," he said with a snort, showing what he thought of her earlier complaints about her looks as he entered the house.

"I knew it!" Cordelia exclaimed angrily. "He is a Gigolo!" They were too far away to catch more than a few words, but she'd heard enough.

"I… Yeah, it does looks that way," Buffy admitted with a sigh. She's been sure everything he'd done that night had been a con job to trick the vamp, including referring to the two girls in the alley as his meal ticket, but apparently he had been serious. He wasn't just saving a couple of girls, he was saving his clients!

The fledge wasn't even considered a factor in the three girls minds, since Xander had dealt with it almost as casually as Buffy would have, giving the impression that it was just an incidental interruption to the night's events and not the focus of them.

"Wait till I get my hands on him!" Cordelia growled out, climbing into the front seat and starting the car.

"Wait!" Willow exclaimed, not wanting to help Cordelia, but remembering how hurt Xander had been at the dance and not wanting to see him suffer through that again.

"What?!" Cordelia snapped out.

"He thinks you dumped him after he did all that stuff for you, not only dumped him, but humiliated him in front of everyone, that too of your own free will. Look at it from his point of view. If you want things to work out, you need to approach him while you're calm, preferably after you have Giles tell him about the spell," Willow explained.

Cordelia took a deep breath and sighed. "You're right, I can't get mad at him for what he doesn't know." Cordelia chuckled. "I don't think there's enough time in eternity for that."

Buffy placed a hand on Willow's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She knew how hard it must have been for Willow to help Cordelia like that.

"Waffle house, my treat," Cordelia decided, feeling a little better.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"I found a copy!" Andrew told Jonathan excitedly as they met up at his place.

"Really? Where?" Jonathan asked.

"It was in a box of damaged books in the thrift shop," Andrew replied, pulling out a small leather book that had its leather cover lightly charred and stained with soot.

"Sure it's the right ones?" Jonathan asked, as he checked the interior and found that the pages were essentially undamaged.

"You can still feel the title on the spine, under all the ash," Andrew explained.

"This is so cool!" Jonathan said.

"Even better, I read a couple of pages," Andrew said.

"And?" Jonathan asked.

"It's not some stupid gesture and say the magic word book," Andrew said excitedly. "It's complicated, goes really in depth, and required actual thought."

Jonathan beamed and awkwardly exchanged high fives with Andrew. While the pair tended to argue about a lot of things, one of the things they had both agreed on was that if magic was real, it would take more than waving a gang sign and spouting a few random syllables to make it happen, it would take intelligence.

Andrew frowned. "Xander doesn't get the best grades and the jocks pick on him too. If he has magic and hunts vamps, why would he let all that happen?"

Jonathan froze. He'd never told Andrew about getting chained up by his teacher who'd turned into a giant insect. Xander had allowed himself to be captured to scope the place out and distract the creature until help arrived, so he was pretty sure of the answer, but was trying to figure out how to phrase it so Andrew would understand and not ask questions. "Did Peter Parker ever beat up Flash Thompson?" Jonathan said, calmly.

"No, that would… give away his secret identity," Andrew said in wonder. "He pretends to be your average student and class clown so no one suspects what he is!"

Jonathan considered that. "He's smarter than he lets on, but I think the clown part is all him, he's pretty funny."

"Definitely smarter than he lets on if he's reading that," Andrew said, gesturing to the book.

"Gotta be," Jonathan agreed.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Xander read the first page, then he read it again… then he retrieved a dictionary and read it a third time. "Talk about wordy," he said, shaking his head. "Pretty sure I could have explained all this in a third of the space they used," Xander mused.

Seeing an unused notebook nearby, he wrote out what he thought it should have said. Comparing the two he changed a few words on his summary to make it more accurate.

"Okay, half the space," he conceded, as he rewrote his version once more to make sure it explained things properly. "And mine is easier to understand," he said with a smirk.

 _ **Twenty minutes later…**_

Xander cursed aloud as he had to look up nearly half the words in a particular sentence and grumbled to himself as his 'translation' took up nearly half the page.

"Wish they had a 'for dummies' version," he said, as he re-read another sentence trying to puzzle out what the writer actually meant as opposed to what he had written, considering he had obscured it's meaning with unnecessary flowery phrases at one point and only revealed at the end of the paragraph that he believed the theory was incorrect and outlined why.

"If there's not a spell at the end of this book that allows you to resurrect the writer for the sole purpose of kicking him in the balls, I am going to be disappointed," Xander said.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Am I interrupting anything?" Giles asked politely, as he entered Janna's classroom and saw she'd cleared a large space in the center of the room.

"Just preparing to renew my personal protections," Janna replied, surprised he'd sought her out and slightly hopeful that he might be there for personal reasons.

"Yes, the Hellmouth rather makes a mockery of those," Giles said. "Close proximity to the Hellmouth itself speeds up the natural erosion of such spells."

They stood in an awkward silence for a moment before Giles hit upon an idea of how to say what he felt without really saying it. "If you warded the room, since you spend the majority of your time here, it would extend the lifespan of your personal defenses by quite a bit."

"How long would a warded room this close to the Hellmouth actually last?" she wondered aloud.

"A week at best, possibly two on the outside," he admitted, "but I have some free time and would be willing to help."

Janna stilled as she realized what he was offering; helping another ward a personal space required a very… positive emotional connection. "I – I'd like that," she quickly said.

"What kind of warding would you like to use?" he asked.

Janna smirked, seized the opportunity to pick up where they'd left off and said, "Tantric." She froze as Giles turned back to the door and relaxed as he simply closed and locked it.

"I'm a bit out of practice," Giles admitted as he approached her. "I may not get it right on the first try."

Janna intertwined her fingers with his. "Well, we'll just have to practice then, won't we?"

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"I can't believe Willy thought Xander had become a mercenary," Buffy said, shaking her head as she poured syrup on her waffles.

"I can't believe he actually became a gigolo," Willow said, meticulously cutting her blueberry pancakes in a perfect grid pattern.

"Still doesn't explain why he ran out of stakes," Cordelia pointed out, recalling Buffy harping on that point, as she cut off a bite sized section of pancake and ate it.

"Maybe he was… looking for clients and kept running into vamps?" Buffy guessed. "Dark alleys are where that sort of thing happens."

"I… That makes a disturbing amount of sense," Cordelia admitted. "It's one hell of an advertising gimmick too. He saves their life, they were looking for a quickie anyway…"

"It's unbelievably dangerous to do that," Buffy said before taking a huge bite of waffle.

"At least with Sarah he was in a safe place," Willow pointed out.

"Well no more back alleys for him," Buffy said firmly, "unless one of us is with him."

Cordelia and Willow both turned to stare at Buffy in shock, but she was too busy eating to notice.

"Once Giles has a talk with him and he gets back with Cordelia, she should be able to reign him in," Buffy continued.

Cordelia and Willow exchanged glances as they realized they'd both completely misunderstood what Buffy meant and then quickly turned their attention to their food as they realized both their minds had been in the exact same gutter.

"At least one mystery is solved," Buffy said, switching to her second plate. "Now we have to find out who cast the spell on Cordelia and possibly see if we can have the aura scrubbing done to us, just in case there are spells on us we didn't know about too."

"You think there could be?" Willow asked.

"No idea," Buffy replied, "but we never knew there were any on Cordelia, so anything's possible and better safe than sorry. Also getting our pores cleared of evil sounds like a good thing to do on a regular basis."

"Probably, but Giles did say the stuff to do it was a bit pricey," Willow reminded her. "We'll probably have to settle for once every couple of months."

"Unless he knows of a cheaper way," Cordelia replied. "He knew to do that thing with the crystals to cut costs, so he probably knows some other ways as well."

Willow nodded and moved her plate aside so she could pull Cordelia's plate in front of her, much to Cordelia's surprise.

"Hey!" Cordelia complained.

"Sorry, but this has been bugging me," Willow said, quickly cutting up the pancakes before returning the plate.

"Then why didn't you do it to hers?" Cordelia asked, gesturing to Buffy, who'd just eaten half a waffle in one bite. "Never mind," Cordelia continued, shaking her head. It wasn't important and she'd found Willow far less grating lately so she didn't feel the need to make a scene about it.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"This is genius," Jonathan said, as he practiced the first exercise, lighting a candle from across the room and then extinguishing it.

"That is so cool!" Andrew squee'd.

"Yeah," Jonathan said in wonder.

"My turn, my turn!" Andrew exclaimed.

"Are you sure you're ready?" Jonathan asked. "It says you have to be calm."

"I figure I'd wind up failing a couple of dozen times and that would calm me down enough to do it," Andrew replied cheerfully.

Jonathan opened his mouth to reply, closed it and considered that. "And then you'll get excited again, take another dozen casts, but eventually you'll get there," he agreed, "but I've got a better idea."

"Yeah?" Andrew asked.

"Think of it like rolling a natural twenty," Jonathan suggested. "It's not the rolling that's cool, it's getting the twenty."

Andrew considered that. "I think that will work… but only after I've rolled a few dozen times, because the first campaign you're in, every dice roll is exciting."

"Good point," Jonathan agreed. "Roll away!"

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Xander double checked what he read and what he understood, before attempting the first exercise. The suggested exercise was lighting and extinguishing a candle, but he suspected he had little if any personal magic and Miss Calendar had cleaned him of Hellmouth crud, so he decided to go with something a lot less draining.

Theoretically, he should be able to duplicate any of the cantrips from Dungeons and Dragons, and possibly some of the weaker first tier spells as this was about altering reality and the less of a change you were creating in how things are the less mana it should take, so creating things that did not exist, even in small amounts like spice, should take up far more mana than spells like silent image of animate rope that simply manipulated things that already existed.

Xander looked out the window and spotted his neighbor's cat, the one who kept peeing on the trellis outside his bedroom window no matter how many times he shooed it away.

"Okay, just need a gesture and a few syllables," Xander said before grinning evilly as he figured out exactly what to use.

He calmed himself, breathing deeply as he focused on the orange cat and exactly what he wanted to happen to the furball. He stuck his finger in his mouth, coated it liberally with saliva before holding it parallel in front of his face and twisting it back and forth as he commanded the universe, "Wet willy!"

"RAAWWWRRR!"

 **Typed By – Sitheus Maximus**


	6. Chapter 6

Xander glanced at the time and saw the comic shop was still open. There were a couple of books in the gaming section that he figured might help him get some ideas on how to best use what he'd learned so he decided to pick them up.

Normally he'd wait until a used or damaged copy ended up in the discount bin, but he could afford to buy new at the moment and it would be stupid to wait.

"You need to leave your jacket and backpack off while you browse," Bob said automatically as Xander entered the store.

"On it," Xander agreed, heading to the gaming tables and dropping his stuff off next to Jonathan's and Andrew's. He noticed a fire damaged tome among their stuff and couldn't help but take a peek.

He was surprised to find it was Algernon Maybach's Guide to Basic Thaumaturgy. Of course Jonathan and Andrew were at Willow levels of intelligence so he really shouldn't have been surprised that they had figured out what was going on in Sunnydale and were studying what they needed to know to protect themselves, he decided.

Glancing at the sheaf of notes he saw that even they had gotten confused by the author's excessively obtuse writing style and occasional contradictory statement.

Placing the book back on top of their notes, he headed for the bargain bin. There was always a chance the books he was looking for could end up there, plus there was usually a manual or two that was fun to read and he could add to his RPG collection.

Andrew and Jonathan meanwhile came out of the new comic section and paid for their purchases. On reaching their table they noticed Xander's stuff and exchanged excited glances.

"We gotta talk to him," Jonathan said intently.

"Yeah, I have like, a billion questions," Andrew said, bouncing in place.

The pair waited for Xander as he bought a small stack of RPG manuals and returned to the table, practically bouncing in their seats.

"Hey guys," Xander said, pulling several notebooks from his backpack and handing them to Jonathan. "How long have you known something was going on around here?"

"Um," Andrew said as Jonathan was distracted paging through the notebooks, eyes wide, "a while. We're still not really sure of anything except that vampires exist and magic is real."

"That's a good place to start," Xander said.

"Who wrote this?" Jonathan asked as he continued reading, fascinated.

"I did," Xander replied.

"B-but this contradicts half of what we've read," Jonathan complained.

"Not really," Xander said. "See, the author is a dick."

"What?" Andrew asked.

"The guy sprinkles misconceptions and traps through the entire book, but he does it in such a way you've got to be sharp to catch them. For instance he talks about meditation techniques and then explains how you have to be of unconflicted emotion to exert your will to make minuscule changes to reality, but he never actually says you have to be completely calm. So long as you aren't of two minds about something it works fine, just concentrate on your dominant emotion and poof."

"Anger is a path to the dark side," Andrew warned, reading over Jonathan's shoulder.

"Magic isn't the Force, though there are some magics that do work that way," Xander said, recalling Amy's mom. "Of course this is Sunnydale, home of the Hellmouth, so it's best to be on guard anyway."

"Hellmouth?" Jonathan asked.

"Beneath the town is a Gateway to Hell," Xander explained. "It's sealed, but eh energy it radiates attracts vampires and demons… and also twists reality a bit to make some truly bizarre stuff possible."

"Demons?" Andrew asked nervously.

"Mostly you just have to worry about the vamps," Xander assured them. "Odds are slim you're going to run into anything else."

"Have you run into anything else?" Andrew asked curiously.

"All the time," Xander replied, "but then I'm part of a group that takes care of these things." He sighs as he thought of recent events. "I'm only going solo for the moment because I did something stupid and the girls are mad at me. Anyway rule number one, don't go looking for trouble, if you see something weird, tell me and I'll go looking for it."

"Wait," Andrew said, "If it just takes unconflicted emotion, then why couldn't I do it when I was just excited?"

"Because you were convinced you had to be calm," Xander replied. "Being able to do the whole Jedi instant calm thing is awesome, no lie, but it's something I can't do, especially in the heat of battle."

"We haven't been in the heat of battle," Jonathan admitted, embarrassed.

"Still better than me," Xander replied, "All my attempts at meditation end with me taking a really refreshing nap." He paused thoughtfully. "Maybe I should add that to my schedule, cause I really don't get near enough sleep."

"But it's easy," Andrew said, surprised Xander couldn't do it.

"Parties are composed of multiple different character classes because no one is good at everything," Xander replied.

"Can I at least multiclass?" Andrew begged.

Xander grinned. "This is real life, (kinda it is the Hellmouth after all), where you can take any skill from any class you want, but you have to practice all your skills, even the basic ones, or they'll gain negative modifiers and fade away."

"Seems like a fair trade," Andrew decided.

"Can we min/max?" Jonathan asked with a smile.

"Munchkin away," Xander assured him.

"How can I get a fighter's hit points?" Andrew asked eagerly.

"If you want the hit points you have to have the body," Xander replied. "The bonus is you also get the strength, con, and dex bonuses as well."

"That would also give you the AC," Jonathan said.

"Partially," Xander said thoughtfully. "Fighters train in how to take a hit and deflect or avoid one."

"Do you take fighter's hp?" Andrew asked.

"I took Rogue," Xander replied. "I don't have the intel score for fighter, but I know you two do."

"That sentence made no sense," Jonathan said.

"Yeah," Andrew agreed. "I mean, you've seen what the jocks are like."

Xander nodded. "I guess I do have to explain that, it's not exactly obvious." He thought for a minute. "OK, now people develop at different rates. Those that develop their physical stats faster than their peers get pushed into going for physical builds and neglecting their mental stats."

"Yeah," Jonathan said, slowly nodding, "they actually look down on it."

"Those that develop their mental build early get funneled into intelligence dominated activities and are actively discouraged from pursuing physical ones," Xander explained.

"Mostly by those already dominating the training areas for physical builds," Andrew said.

"Exactly," Xander agreed, "but thanks to high intel rolls you can not only come up with ways to maximize the experience gain, but you can also substitute intelligence for will on your con checks."

"I almost get it," Jonathan said thoughtfully, "but I'm still missing some bits."

"OK," Xander agreed. "Every time you run low on stamina you have to make a will save to continue and having mental builds your con is low and hence your stamina is also low, so those checks are frequent to start, but you can make a will check against your intelligence instead if you can come up with intelligent reasons for continuing physically draining activities."

"Give me an example," Jonathan requested.

"I'll give you two," Xander replied. "Continuing the exercise will boost your physical stats, meaning pain now under your control, prevents pain later under someone else's. Every drop of sweat you shed in training prevents a drop of blood from being shed in battle, and that blood is not just yours, it's your friend's too." Xander fell silent for a minute before dropping his head on the table. "Dammit!"

"What?" Jonathan asked. "Those are pretty good reasons."

Andrew started laughing.

"Dammit!" Xander repeated with a sigh.

"He just substituted his intelligence for his wisdom and convinced himself," Andrew explained, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

"If you work out enough, you don't have to worry about anyone pushing you around or publicly humiliating you anymore," Xander said with an evil grin.

Andrew and Jonathan exchanged glances. "Crap!" they chorused.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Still haven't talked to him?" Buffy asked Cordelia at lunch.

"Monday was a half day, he didn't come in to talk to Giles Tuesday or Wednesday," Cordelia said.

"Those are just excuses," Buffy said. "You can go talk to him at any time. Trust me, he'll understand."

Cordelia chewed her lip for a moment then frowned. "You and Willow haven't apologized yet, have you? You just want me to soften him up so he'll go easier on you."

"Not really," Willow said, shaking her head. "It's more we want him in a good mood when we apologize so we won't feel as guilty."

The three girls looked across the cafeteria where Xander was sitting with Jonathan and Andrew. A girl approached them and talked to Xander, pushing a wad of cash into his hand.

"Girls are hiring him during school hours now?!" Willow asked, wide eyed.

Xander peeled off several bills and passed the rest to Jonathan who grabbed a backpack and followed the girl out of the cafeteria.

"No, I think he's pimping out Andrew and Jonathan," Buffy said in shock.

"Cordelia," Willow said, giving the brunette a look that actually made her shrink back. "Talk to him."

"I'll grab him during his free," Cordelia promised.

"OK," Willow said, turning back to her lunch.

"I could see maybe Jonathan working as a Gigolo, but Andrew?" Buffy asked, confused. "If I approached wanting Xander and someone gave me Andrew, I'd be upset."

Blaine from the swim team approached the table and left with Andrew.

"OK, now it makes sense," Buffy said. "Never knew Blaine was gay."

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

Xander had just passed the Janitor's closet when the door opened and a familiar brunette pulled him inside. "Um Cordelia, we aren't dating anymore," he pointed out.

"Yes we are," Cordelia said firmly, "and Buffy and Willow want to apologize to you."

"Are you guys under a spell?" Xander asked, placing a hand on her shoulder and looking at her intently.

Cordelia almost sighed in relief at the opening he gave her. "No, but I was on Valentine's Day. In fact, the cleaning thing with Miss Calendar is what removed it and then Giles identified it later that day."

Xander searched Cordelia's eyes, but couldn't see even a hint of someone controlling her. She seemed to be completely in control of herself. "Why take so long to tell me?"

"Because I expected you to talk to Giles first as he was supposed to explain things to you," Cordelia said. "At that point I was hoping Buffy and Willow would apologize and then I would tell you."

Xander pinched his arm. "Huh, I'm not dreaming."

"So are we…" Cordelia trailed off, looking vulnerable.

"Cordelia Chase is many things, but a liar isn't one of them," Xander said. "So, if she says we aren't broken up… Well, then we must not be broken up."

Cordelia kissed him hard, before pulling back and saying, "So, no more lurking in back alleys?"

"I believe I can go back to just doing patrols with the gang," Xander assured her.

"Good," Cordelia said. "I was thinking you might like to come to my house and spend some time at the pool."

"I would, but I promised Jonathan and Andrew I would train them to the best of my ability, which means about an hour and a half of physical training followed by another hour of techniques and theory."

Cordelia just stared.

"To make it worse the hour and a half of physical training has been taking us three hours because we are far from the shape of the clan in Japan where the exercises originate," Xander explained.

"I keep forgetting how hard you throw yourself in whatever you decide to do," Cordelia said. "Can you stop by the library and accept Buffy and Willow's apology?"

"Sure," Xander replied. "I'll stop by right after school."

"Good," Cordelia said with a bright smile, relieved that everything was back to normal. After a few seconds of silence she said, "You know, as long as we're here…"

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"So, everything went well?" Buffy asked as they all met up in the school library.

"It went well," Cordelia agreed with a smirk. "We are still dating and he'll be here shortly."

"So he's giving up being a gigolo?" Willow asked.

"Of course," Cordelia said, giving Willow a 'duh' look. "But he did promise to train Jonathan and Andrew which apparently takes about four hours a day right now."

"Four hours?!" Buffy and Willow exclaimed.

"Something like that," Cordelia said. "Most of it is physical exercise of some kind, but since they are just starting out, the ninety minute regiment takes them three hours to complete."

"You'd have to be in good shape to get a good price," Buffy allowed. "I didn't think Xander was out of shape though."

"He says he's been slacking off and can do better," Cordelia said, a smirk on her face as she pictured Xander fresh from a workout, sweat glistening on his skin.

"So the workout regiment is ninety minutes a day and he's too out of shape to complete it under three hours right now?" Willow thought aloud. "That is one heck of a work out. I wonder what it consists of."

"Hey guys, you wanted to see me?" Xander asked, as he entered the school library.

"Yes," Buffy said, stepping forward, relieved to see he was in a good mood, "Me and Willow wanted to apologize for how we were treating you. You were right, we were going overboard, but to be fair part of it was probably backlash from the spell since it was cast to punish you."

"What?" Xander asked.

"What?" Buffy replied as everyone stared at her.

"It was designed to punish Xander?" Willow asked.

"Well, yeah," Buffy said. "I thought that was obvious."

"Not as such, no," Giles said.

"Oh, well the way I see it, Aphrodite or whoever was called on didn't like Xander's motives so she pulled a 'be careful what you wish for' on him, since the spell in no way should have done what it did. Plus the way we all felt afterwards, despite him being a perfect gentleman, for a teenage boy, kinda cemented it. The spell was screwed with to teach you a life lesson type thing," Buffy explained.

Xander looked up. "Message received loud and clear," he told the sky. "OK, double forgiveness for both of you," he told Willow and Buffy.

The girls giggled and Oz looked relieved, happy he didn't have to come up with jokes on the fly anymore.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to meet up with the guys for our workout," Xander said.

Willow nudged Oz under the table.

"Room for one more?" Oz asked.

"Do you have two padlocks and forty pounds of steel chain?" Xander asked.

"In the van," Oz agreed, drawing the Scoob's attention.

"Werewolf," he reminded them. "Just in case I get caught out during a full moon."

"What do you do with all that chain?" Buffy asked Xander.

"Wrap it around our limbs and torso before trying to fight the surf," Xander said. "Very tiring, but very effective. Come on, let's get to the beach and get training."

Oz gave Willow a quick peck before leaving with Xander.

Cordelia smirked at Willow. "Want Oz to get buff?"

"No," Willow said, blushing, "I was nudging him to ask about the training, because I'm still a little embarrassed at my behavior."

"Actually I think I may know something about it," Giles offered. "Samurai used to practice their moves in the surf, because once you could perform them properly, in water with the current ever shifting them, your speed and strength in air was simply phenomenal."

"Not to mention stamina," Cordelia said with a grin.

"It makes for a grueling but effective workout as well," Giles noted. "The length seems a bit excessive though."

"That's not what she said," Buffy quipped. "What? Somebody had to say it and Xander's not here."

The girls laughed while Giles retreated to his office and some well deserved peace and quiet. Any snickering on his part was obviously just him clearing his throat.

 **Typing By: Abyssal Angel**


	7. Chapter 7

The four teens stumbled out of the surf and collapsed on the sand, the chains wrapped around them clanking loudly.

"You guys do this daily?" Oz muttered in disbelief.

"It's actually not that bad," Andrew said, gasping for breath.

Oz raised an eyebrow.

"No one is yelling at or making fun of us," Andrew explained.

"I've had some people on the beach call me crazy for doing it, but it was like... they were impressed," Jonathan added with a smile.

"And when I run in gym…." Andrew laughed.

"It gets results crazy fast," Xander said. "Though part of this is a technique I'm going to show you."

"The most awesome magic even," Andrew said. "It's like the Swiss army knife of spells."

"The Hellmouth leaks evil mojo that gives you bad luck," Xander explained, "but you can burn it off to power the simplest spell ever. It's not supposed to be all that powerful, but it's turned out to be a lot more useful then its described."

"Actually Andrew and I think we know why that is," Jonathan offered.

"Yeah?" Xander asked

"We think its a combination of several things," Jonathan said,"one, since we spend so much time in close proximity to the Hellmouth we have a lot more energy to burn off than someone who spends just a little time here."

"I think we can hold more of a charge because all the charging and discharging over the years would have expanded how much 'bad luck' we can hold making each discharge bigger," Andrew added.

"They makes sense and explains why things get worse as we grow older," Xander agreed.

"Two, the Hellmouth makes reality a lot more malleable, so you can get a greater effect for less effort than you can get off the Hellmouth," Jonathan continued.

"There may even be a synergistic effect from using the Hellmouth's energy on things it's already affecting," Andrew added.

"That makes a lot of sense," Xander said. "You guys have really thought this out. OK, what's number three?"

"You're you," Andrew said with a grin.

"What he means is," Jonathan quickly added, "that you don't approach magic normally. The normal approach is, you summon the power and then force your will on the world, but you look for the smallest change needed to get what you want and...talk the universe into it."

"You guys don't?" Xander asked surprised.

"Not until you explained it to us," Jonathan admitted.

"It makes it so much easier," Andrew said. "Of course now I'm doing the same thing, trying to figure out the easiest way to get the same effect."

"Can I get an example?" Oz asked curiously, wondering what this had to do with sex.

"Sure," Xander said as he turning to scan the beach. "OK, see that young couple right there?"

Everyone turned and saw a pair of young teens who kept leaning close to another and then pulling away at the last second, blushing brightly.

"How would you get them to kiss?" Xander asked.

"A burst of wind to push them together?" Jonathan suggested as the pair leaned close once more.

"A surge of hormones?" Andrew added.

"Even easier," Xander said. "Sensation...you send the sensation of lips touching when they get close enough and they'll get over their hesitation, watch."

Xander licked his thumb and waited until they came close together once more, gathering their courage, and whispered, "Kiss," before lightly brushing his thumb across his lips.

The pair pulled away blushing brightly then leaned and kissed 'once more'.

"That was awesome," Oz said, seeing a number of ways to use that spell.

"They look so happy," Andrew said with a wistful smile.

"OK, that's enough of a break for now," Xander said. "One more round to go and then you two get to explain the basics of magic to him before I outline how to turn fatigue poisons into growth hormones."

"Really?" Oz asked.

Xander shrugged. "Damned if I know, but tricking your own body into doing something it does naturally, just at a faster rate, is a lot easier than tricking someone else's and it seems to fit the effects."

"Sweat more now," Jonathan said, psyching himself up.

"Bleed less later," Andrew finished as they forced themselves to their feet.

"We've got this," Xander encouraged them, giving Oz a hand up before the four went back into the Ocean.

 **0o0o0o0o0**

"How…...was it?" Willow asked as Oz joined them in the library.

"Exhausting," Oz replied sinking into the chair.

"And the techniques?" Cordelia demanded.

"Amazing," Oz said flatly.

"So Xander knows…..things?" Buffy asked lamely.

Oz nodded.

"Can we get a little less detail?" Cordelia said sarcastically.

"I have to study four chapters of human physiology tonight in preparation for learning my first technique tomorrow," Oz replied.

"Seriously?" Buffy asked in disbelief.

"Their stamina and recovery are unreal," Oz said, recalling how'd they had to cut their exercises short because he couldn't keep up, despite the slight boost the wolf gave him.

"Where did he learn all this?" Willow demanded. "I mean we've been best friends forever and I think I would remember him signing up for classes on how to become a gigolo in his spare time."

"He's self-taught," Oz said, recalling their discussions on possible ways to enhance their training and Andrew's complaints on no one making proper manuals like they did in Dungeons and Dragons.

"He's a natural?" Buffy asked, the very idea so foreign to her image of Xander she didn't know what to think.

Oz shrugged. "Apparently it has something to do with the way his mind works." He tilted his head and thought about their discussion. "The most bang for your buck', is the way he put it, meaning managing your energy usage to get the greatest effect for the least amount of effort. It was a very surreal conversation…. but it made sense."

"I still don't get he convinced girls to have sex with him for money," Buffy said. "Teenage guys don't usually get paid, they pay in gifts and dates...and favors."

Oz shrugged. "Maybe they like the fact that it puts them in charge?"

"I could see that," Buffy said thoughtfully. "I mean guys can't exactly be pushy or overbearing if you are hiring them to do what you want."

"And word gets around, especially around here," Willow said.

"Plus…" Cordelia blushed a little, "a man who saves you from certain death and kills the demon that was trying to eat you…"

"I never get guys that react that way," Buffy complained.

"Do you really want to?" Oz asked.

"Well…...no," Buffy admitted as she thought about it. "Though some kind of thanks would be nice every once in a while."

"Or a latte," Cordelia suggested.

"Yes," Buffy decided with a nod. "The next guy I save is going to owe me a latte."

"We'll see how that works out," Giles said dryly. "In the meantime, here is your patrol route for the night.

"Oh," Buffy said with a grin as she looked over the planned route.

"What?" Willow asked.

"My route goes right by the college coffee shop!"

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

"If they still used alcohol-based hairspray you could light a vampire as easy as a candle," Andrew said as Xander snapped his fingers, trying to use the sound of his fingers snapping in place of the vocal component to light the candle.

"Sadly, the gels they use today are pretty flame retardant," Xander said finally getting the candle to light. "I've checked."

"You could break down the gel into flammable byproducts and then light it," Jonathan suggested.

"You generally don't have enough time to shift focus and cast again when dealing with vamps," Xander said. "The Watcher's council report says that the standard fledge is several times as fast as a human before they're even fed once. The only reason we have time for a single action is because they are arrogant and like to play with their prey."

"What if one of us take it down and the other lit it?" Andrew asked. "Like a combination attack."

"It'd be hard to get the timing right," Xander said.

"Actually that parts easy," Andrew said. "We do it one after another and wait for the other's vocal component, like when we do that thing to motivate ourselves."

"I could see that working," Xander said thoughtfully. "Vamps are drama queens, they'd let you do your introduction just to make killing you more dramatic."

"Especially if we made it quick," Jonathan said. "One and a snap of the fingers."

"Game," Andrew said, snapping his fingers.

"On," Jonathan added, snapping his fingers.

"Nice, simple, and an air of foreboding," Xander said approvingly. "You might be able to bluff any other vamps in the area with that or at least stall them long enough to get a second shot."

"Really?" Andrew asked eagerly.

"Sound confident, look disdainful and set one of them on fire with no effort?" Xander asked with a grin. "That should make them pause."

"Can you do disdainful?" Jonathan asked Andrew.

Andrew tried and only managed to appear constipated.

"Nope," Xander said. "How about insanely gleeful?"

"Like what?" Andrew asked.

"Like the first time you got the candle to light," Jonathan suggested.

Andrew's eyes lit up and he grinned.

"That works," Xander said. "Manic pyro and pal who wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire."

"Kinda like good cop, bad cop?" Andrew asked.

"Sunnydale style," Xander agreed.

"I'll got get a chemistry book," Andrew said rushing off.

"Why do vamps spend so much time on their appearance?" Jonathan asked Xander.

"Makes it easier to lure out prey," Xander replied. "Most of the time they blend in and try to get you off by yourself so they can try and kill you in private and that's a whole lot easier when the prey cooperates."

"And that's probably why there are so few ugly vampires, they need to be able to attract prey or they starve," Jonathan said.

"Part of the turning process includes fixing their teeth and removing blemishes," Xander added. "Plus, vamps choose pretty people to turn."

"Better than turning intelligent people," Jonathan said.

Xander nodded. "I'd rather fight vamps chosen for their looks rather than their brains."

"Yeah," Jonathan agreed. "A vamp with a brain would be scary."

Andrew rushed back with several books in his hand. "I've got them!" he said excitedly.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

The girls waited for Oz to get back from his third day of training.

"Has Xander shown you any of his tricks?" Buffy asked Cordelia.

Cordelia grinned. "Not the ones you're thinking of, but he's somehow became an expert on removing stains that even the dry cleaners can't touch and repairing rips."

"Seriously?" Buffy asked.

Cordelia beamed and gestured at her burgundy blouse. "My favorite blouse, that I thought I'd have to get rid of after that vamp knocked my coffee on me and tore when he grabbed me to use as a shield from you last week. Xander fixed it while I was in the restroom." She beamed. "He is so thoughtful and talented."

"So no… sex stuff?" Willow asked.

"Not unless you count that thing with his tongue," Cordelia replied with a shrug. "We've never really needed any help, so maybe he just doesn't feel the need to use them on me."

"Could be," Buffy agreed.

The library doors opened and Oz came in, looking exhausted but happy.

"How'd it go?" Willow asked eagerly.

"Did he teach you anything?" Buffy demanded.

Oz nodded. "The first trick, to help with the physical training, I'm still working on, but I have the second one down."

"Can you show it to us or is it… private?" Willow asked curiously.

"Can I borrow your earlobe?" Oz asked Willow.

"Um… S-sure," Willow agreed as Oz slipped into the seat next to her.

Oz put his arm around the shy redhead and whispered, "Relax," as he learned in close and sucked gently on her earlobe and stroked her back.

Willow squeaked, shuddered, and slumped against his side, breathing heavily.

Seeing the look on Willow's face, Cordelia and Buffy exchanged shocked glances.

"You owe me some dry p-panties Mr," Willow told Oz lazily, "just as soon as I can walk."

"Xander can do that?" Buffy asked in disbelief, as Willow's eyes drifted shut and she fell asleep.

"Usually it takes him a good ten minutes and some encouragement," Cordelia admitted. "Plus the tongue thing."

 **Typing by: Dangasaur**

 **TN: Save me...I only have a few minutes before ouisbdfkasbfoiqbfjbdsfkabsdfabdfkabdflkajdf**


End file.
